GAINESVILLE, Ga. (BP) – Canceling services due to illness is not new to Baptist history. Pandemics, epidemics and weather have all been part of our collective experience. Possibly the most feared epidemics were those of yellow fever, which periodically swept through the South, emptying cities, towns and villages. Three major outbreaks occurred in 1820, 1854 and 1876. But these earlier epidemics did not have the impact of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. It began in the fall of 1918 near … [Read more...]